Dec 23, 2011

Given the success at the box office of the latest in a long line of Hollywood films that involve the modern world being torn asunder by a bunch of hairy, stinky, ignorant, hygiene-adverse barbarian-like miscreants whose only goal is to reduce everything they touch to some primitive ‘lowest common denominator’ where they can at last feel at home and ‘safe’ amid the chaos and rubble of the once well-ordered modern world, the creative types in Hollywood have set their tentative sights on capturing a potentially even more horrifying concept on film, a future world run by the Snopes farmer/rancher clan in the 2nd smallest town in the Great State of Washington.

“Well, it is easy for our viewers to suspend belief with all those fancy special effects and given the fact that the protagonists are in fact just apes and all, but if they really got a glimpse into what could be right around the corner, a world run by 8th grade drop-outs and criminals and people who fight against flush toilets and using fire hydrants to put out fires – well, that is liable to scare them right out of their socks!” said Biff Finklestein, a Hollywood big shot. “Sure, we can all laugh off some decidedly implausible inter-species feud based sometime in the future, but what do you do when faced with a very real abomination lurking right under the surface of society in rural America – at least in Lamont, anyway! That puts a whole new complexion on the classic “Evil semi-sub-human mischief-makers want to destroy the world” theme that, quite frankly, we in the Hollywood community have pretty much beaten into the ground with greed driven gusto” he waxed poetically while also talking on his cell phone to some person he called 'babe' and 'doll' about 200 times. (We think it was a dude, too!!) “Sure, there is a lot of overlap between the two protagonists – both groups, the apes and the Snopes, tend to be angry, crude, dirty, largely uneducated and desire to smash every vestige of modern civilization that they did nothing to build, but to be fair to the apes, there is no evidence that they are against libraries, flush toilets, pavement, clean water or using fire hydrants in case of a fire. We have to be fair here. So, on some level, should this concept ever get off the ground, you can rest assured that this will be a horror classic that will have innocent citizens fleeing the theaters in blind terror and weeping in the aisles at the crushing nightmarishness of the thing. We will all long to be ruled by the apes after we get a small taste of living under the Snopes, let me tell you!” he said gleefully, rubbing his hands at the prospect of scaring the living daylights out of the movie going public across the globe.

(Editorial Note: We at the Lamont Blog would like to apologize to the entire global ape/monkey community for any unfair comparisons or aspersions that were inadvertently cast by this article. At the Lamont Blog, we just report the news, we do not make it, and any harm, whether real or imagined, is unintended and thus regretted. Thank you!)

Dec 16, 2011

In one of those Lamont things that leaves an even somewhat normal person just staring at the nearest wall in dumb stupefaction, an area woman, Gertrude Snopes, 72, an area grandmother, made sure that she told every person that she knew and well over three dozen that she didn’t that she does not appreciate being referred to by a ‘nom de guerre’ historically used in polite society for a much younger woman (in the 17th or 18th centuries!!), insiders report. “Well, that just won’t do!” said the demonstrative Gertrude to some poor car of Idahoans just passing thru after getting lost and unfortunately ending up in Lamont. (Whoa! Talk about the makings of a horror classic!) “Being a woman in my early 50’s, one cannot but help to attract the unwanted passions of the male gender, I guess” said the woman who looks a far sight closer to octogenarian status than the long distant and decidedly tarnished 6th decade of life. “Those days of turning heads and causing minor traffic jams when walking down the street are, for me, in the waning hours, and to be thrust back into the tumult of unwanted male passions is just not appropriate for this stage of my life” said the delusional woman who once did cause a traffic jam, but that was because she chased her first husband (of three!) into the street with a rolling pin during a 4th of July parade because he wanted a “little kiss” to celebrate our nation’s birthday – an endeavor that she would have none of, of course. “Oh, it is such a burden being of the fairer sex. One can cause such a commotion just by being one’s own self! I am pleased that the bloom is not quite off this rose, however. But then again, I always had it in such abundance” she giggled insanely to herself. (Thankfully the Idaho family had the sense to speed away at her somewhat menacing and determined approach!)

When asked for comment, the outrageous cad who supposedly uttered the offending expression, Jethro Bodine, 62, although obviously intoxicated at 10:30 in the morning, denied that he ever said such a thing, particularly about “That bitter old battle axe of a woman”, but instead claimed that he was in fact referring to the town of Lamont when he uttered the slurred words “ain’t worth fixin’”. No charges were pressed in the matter, but the Sheriff’s deputy called to the scene did vow to try to get another job in another county that does not border on the one Lamont is in.

Nov 29, 2011

The Town of Lamont, a humble, unassuming, decidedly educationally challenged hamlet nestled up against the icy, unforgiving bosom of the Jurassic Park-like Scablands in the otherwise beautiful and fruitful Palouse region of Eastern Washington, has decided to adapt to the harsh taskmaster known by the name “Reality” and address a long-standing problem related to the general education level of the area citizenry – a chronic and pervasive inability to spell, do math, comprehend history, embrace the modern era and basically adapt to the Industrial Age, insiders report.

“Well, let’s be honest here, we have a local School System run by ranchers at the School Board level, and any dern fool knows that in these parts, the dumbest son inherits the ranch, so you don’t have to be some genius to realize that after a very few generations of bad decision-making that the whole educational arrangement would go to hell in a hand basket…” said Clem Festoon, an area rancher and obviously a man who knows of what he speaks, given that he inherited his daddy’s ranch in 1996 after all the smart brothers moved away. “Anyway, after we got done educating (pronounced ‘Ed-U-Cait-In”) them little rascals, we realized that not a one of them could spell worth a dern– and that led to them not even being able to tell folks like the police or whoever where they lived when they get arrested 8-10 times a year, (whoa, that seems a tad light!) not if they had to write it on a police report, anyway. It was just a mess. Sure, Lamont has a whole bunch of letters in it, so it only made sense to tighten the thing up a bit to cut down on those all too frequent mistakes that made the American education (pronounced “Ed-U-Cay-Sion” Whoa!) system look bad, that’s all!” he rambled on, looking like an old Billy-goat chewing on a hornet or something. “So we all got together and decided to jettison one of them dern letters and to see if that solved the problem. We were going to get rid of 4 of them, but some smarty-pants pointed out that there is some town somewhere called “LA”, so we figured we’d start off small and modest, as is our nature” he said expansively.

“Well, statistically speaking, by Lamont discarding just one of the letters in their name, that reduces the chance of a spelling error by a whopping 16.67%. That may not seem like a huge percentage, but 16.67% is 16.67%, any way you slice it.” said Dr. Winston Finklemeyer, an area mathematician and the guy who helps the area ranchers count their cows when it is ‘cow counting time”. “So, anyway, this may seem like a quite unnecessary gesture by an educationally challenged town, but changing the town name from “Lamont” to “Lamon” can only reap dividends in the long term, especially since the farmers and ranchers on the school board spend a vast majority of available discretionary funds on sports as opposed to the “3 R’s” (Reading, writing and ‘ranching’?)” he said, putting his handy solar powered calculator back in his plastic pocket protector with the little atom logo on it. (Atom as in atomic – not Eve’s husband from the bible or whatever!)

Nov 26, 2011

In the first reported reprieve of its kind since the thankful Noah and his beleaguered brood quite gleefully and with much relief and thanksgiving released those paragons of avian troublemaking – the parrots – from the Ark after the Lord destroyed most of mankind for its unrepentant wickedness (Editorial Note: Why didn’t Noah release a parrot instead of a dove and that other bird (whatever it was!) to see if there was dry land? Did they refuse to go? Was such a mission beneath their dignity? Did he ask them and they gave him a whole lot of lip (beak??) like they are prone to do? Biblical scholars appear to be divided on this point, unfortunately! Anyway…) – an entire holiday seems to have passed without parrots using their unique and decidedly meddlesome abilities to somehow throw a monkey-wrench in their human companion’s holiday revelry, experts report.

“Well, although I have several PhD’s and wear decidedly academic sweater vests and imposing horned-rim glasses, I am just as perplexed as the rest of you unlearned heathens with mere Master’s degrees or, heaven forbid, a measly 4 year degree from a non-Ivy league school!” said Dr. Thurston Maxwell Vanderbilt III, PhD, a renowned parrot expert and Dean of the Harvard School of Birds. “All of us in the Avian Sciences community await this time of year with foreboding and apprehension, just hunkered down behind our desks, waiting to see what those winged miscreants will unleash on what appears to be a hapless mankind! Just last year, there was that parrot in Spokane who imitated the oven timer on Thanksgiving as some sort of dramatic show of inter-species solidarity, causing the usually savvy Erika of Century West Engineering fame to remove the unfortunate dinner centerpiece, the turkey, from the oven over an hour early, thus ruining the festivities and giving her mother-in-law even more ammo to use against her in the decades to come. Sadly, incidents like that tend to occur across the globe on an all-too-frequent basis. So going an entire Thanksgiving day without a single reported incident of provocative parrot pandemonium cannot but forebode ill for the coming months. That tells me that they are planning something big, really big, and may the Lord help us all when that is unleashed upon us!” he shuddered in an Ivory Tower sort of way while pushing his glasses back up his beaky nose in a decidedly dramatic and haughty fashion.

“Well, all I have to say is the Lord has blessed us this day, and we do indeed have so much to be thankful for!” said the so-called Erika of Century West Engineering fame, the uber-goddess of efficiency and world famous parrot rescue maven. “After the last several years of unremitting parrot-inspired holiday disasters, you will forgive me for dreading the holiday season, and it doesn’t help that my mother-in-law just seems to come alive at this time of year, eagerly anticipating another domestic calamity that she can use against me for the rest of my life, given that it is almost a certainty that the woman will outlive me, if for no other reason than spite!” said Erika while expertly changing the newspaper in the bottom of one of her several quite roomy and expansive bird cages. “Oh, I was on pins and needles all day, just waiting for the parrot’s well conceived plans to come raining down on all of us. It was horrid. But when I served the last piece of pie and was able to sit down for the first time all day, I realized that no hideous disasters had befallen me and my social reputation had dodged the bullet for 2011, but that is when I really began to worry. Those darn birds are planning something. You can just see it in their beady little, dinosaur-like eyes. Even my bon-bon making sister (who hardly ever shares with anyone, particularly people who just happen to live in the high desert of New Mexico! Shame on you, Baroness d’Bon-Bon! Shame!!) – even she felt the presence of impending doom! Oh, in so many ways I just wish that the darn birds would have just gone ahead and gotten it over with this Thanksgiving! This waiting is going to put a real crimp in my normally over-the-top Christmas cheer, let me tell you!” she concluded solemnly while going to the garage to set up the 'Rump Shaking" Santa display.

Nov 17, 2011

In a social development that has the nation’s sociologists bristling with academic excitement and egghead-like verve, an area man, Festus Bodine, 43, has had the entire Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) turn their backs on him and slam the doors of social acceptance in his face after word leaked out that he somehow manages to cope with his crushing failure, utter hopelessness and dismal future prospects without hitting the bottle or guzzling a couple of cheap twelve packs of beer by noon on a typical work day, insiders report. Mr. Bodine, a farmer/rancher and proprietor of the “Dopey Z” ranch that he inherited because he was, of course, the dumbest son and the dumbest son always inherits the ranch in these parts. Anyway, although he has every reason to hide from himself and his almost unbelievable dysfunction in the bottom of a glass of cheap hooch, instead he likes to tie knots, shovel manure and cut his own hair when the weight of his collective failure comes crashing down on him like an avalanche of all consuming human hopelessness.

“Well, it just ain’t natural, that’s all” said Wilber Festoon, an area rancher and ironically also the dumbest son of the somewhat questionable “Festoon brood”, although his parentage has been in question since he was born with reddish hair in a family of brown eyed, dark haired males. “I mean, I just don’t see why he has to go putting on airs thinking he is all better than us as we drink ourselves blind and our collective livers are the size of a school bus!” fumed the indignant rancher Festoon. “If he had a lick of social decency, he would hide bottles of rot gut all over his ranch like any normal rancher does in these parts and have an almost unlimited supply of $1.99 six-packs stashed up in the hay loft like any normal person would. Sure, he is just as goofed up and dysfunctional as the rest of us, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but he ain’t winning himself any favors with that holier-than-thou attitude and snooty inability to go thru life three sheets to the wind and in a reeking, mind-numbed blur like any half-way decent American rancher worth his salt would do! I just find his haughty attitude about pickling his innards a tad pretentious and ‘off-putting’, that’s all!” he raved drunkenly. “Sure, it is hell being the dumbest son and being forced to look at the backside of a cow from dawn till dusk for one’s entire life, that is the price we pay for rejecting education and dropping out of school in the 8th grade, but the least the man could do is join into the collective misery and get sloshed like the rest of us. I just can’t stand to be around a man who can’t gulp a 16 ounce beer then burp the Star Spangled Banner. I’m starting to wonder if he is really an American at all but instead is one of them Commie plants sent here by the Russkies to undermine our way of life or something!” he stammered boozily before wiping his stubbly chin on the sleeve of his quite malodorous work shirt that has the unfortunate byproducts of at least 20 head of cattle worked into the fibers at any given moment and that is in desperate need of a good washing, although his wife is usually too sloshed to work the controls on their 20 year old washing machine.

When asked for comment, the big sissy ‘goodie-two-shoes’ Festus managed to mutter “Well, it ain’t like I got nothing against drinking or nothing, but the wife is as crafty as a dadburned fox and discovered all my hiding places years ago and I’ll be derned if that woman don’t ferret out and guzzle any booze I got hid before a man has a decent chance to partake in its deceptively destructive pleasures and liver taxing goodness, if you get my meaning” he said while winking awkwardly. (Editorial Note: Oh, the humanity!!! People please, stay in High School until you graduate or you, too, might end up crafting sentences like that! You don’t have to go to college – but at least graduate from High School! Please! Thank you!!! And whatever you do, don't EVER wink for added emphasis for a weak, unsupportable point that makes almost no sense whatsoever! Come on!!)

Oct 30, 2011

Editorial Note:
In another sign that the 'End Times' are upon us, that unfortunate Disco dance/dress social abomination has finally wound its nefarious influences into the 2nd smallest town in the State. As if that were not bad enough, the entire sissy Lamont Blog reporting staff threatened to resign en masse if they were forced to report on such an unholy development in this day and age. So, given this quite reasonable yet insubordinate rebellion by trained professionals who have devoted their measly energies and sparse talents to bringing the eager, news-hungry world the very essence of life in the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) (the global community chomps at the bit for every morsel and tidbit, or so it would seem!), the highly professional, under-appreciated, quietly heroic and ever vigilant "Editorial Staff" at the Lamont Blog had to step up, step in and carry the water once again for the whole doggone team, like that is anything new. This Disco story was so disturbing and so fundamentally unsettling that our generous readers will just have to fill in the horrible and nauseating blanks, if they can summon the courage, that is - given that our reporters seem to be so lilly-livered and spineless to the extreme when faced with the very horrors that make life on this wretched orb less than sustainable from a social and psychological perspective. We apologize for any inconvenience that this gutless hand-wringing by our so-called 'reporters' might have caused our faithful readership or readerhood or whatever that word is supposed to be. Thank you!

Oct 24, 2011

In a quite appropriate assemblage of circumstances that has beleaguered son-in-laws the world over rejoicing at the sheer poetic justice of the thing, an area busybody (and quite enthusiastic and over-reaching mother-in-law in her own right) Brunhilda Snopes, aged 63, an area battle axe and farm/ranch matriarch, was nearly rendered senseless with fright after inserting herself into a situation where she obviously didn’t belong in the misguided and somewhat cruel attempt to ridicule and undermine another human being over something that really doesn’t matter all that much anyway.

“Well, I was over at the Festoon place when Skeeter Festoon (the dumbest of the Festoon kids so obviously the one who will inherit the ranch!!) came traipsing up, looking all disheveled and dingy, all his clothes some sort of unimpressive gray or whatever, and that is when I noticed what I was certain was a major laundry faux pas!” said Brunhilda wearily. “You know how men are with laundry! They will wash on any old temperature, throw colors in with whites, and never, ever use fabric softener, regardless of how much one nags! Lord knows the concept of a dryer sheet is beyond the realm of the remotest possibility! (Editorial note: Using stupid dryer sheets is, in fact, a pronounced statistical improbability several stages past 'remote', yes!) Oh, it is just a disgusting mess! Anyway, as I was cataloging the quite numerous laundry violations that Skeeter seems to rack up like deer antlers at a taxidermy shop, I saw what appeared to any reasonable laundry aficionado to be a clothespin still attached to the back of his quite faded and unimpressive shirt. So, needless to say, I marched right up to him in order to remove the offending laundry instrument and wag it in his face in order to prove once and for all my superiority over him in all things laundry, when before I knew it, that supposed ‘clothespin” began wriggling in my hand and those horrid little forelegs began stroking my fingers and those beady little eyes just glared at me with the inter-species contempt and hatred that only a lower life form can feel for a creature at the top of the food chain!” she stammered pathetically (Ironically, that was the same look she gave Skeeter upon critiquing his current outfit or ‘get-up’ or whatever you call that odd assortment of garments that Skeeter likes to wear!) “Oh, it was horrid – and it even scared Skeeter so bad he went lumbering across the yard (at unnaturally high speed for a homo sapien!) and knocked himself unconscious against that apricot tree. Oh, none of this dern mess would have happened if he would have just listened to my years of laundry-related scolding and if he would have bended himself to my irrepressible will and let me control every aspect of his stupid and worthless life until every semblance of humanity was wrung from him!” she said defiantly with an air of misplaced superiority and angst. (While vigorously wiping her liver-spotted hand on her tattered apron to get the 'insect germs' off!)

“Well, when I got out of bed about noon and went to do whatever one is supposed to do on a ranch or whatever, I had the unfortunate reality of bumping into that ever-unpleasant Brunhilda out by the chicken coop!” said the still groggy Skeeter while holding a piece of raw liver to his quite livid and greenish-black eye. “Anyway, I was trying to be polite and move away from her with some dispatch, realizing that I was more than likely going to have to sneak into the barn and hit the bottle like I do after most exchanges with that bitter shrew of a woman, when the next thing I knew she marches right up to me, touches me on the back between my shoulder blades and then begins screaming and howling and carrying on like some demon inspired banshee from the very pit itself! Needless to say that was quite unexpected. Well, being a coward by nature, resolving the ‘fight or flight’ dichotomy was really a no-brainer for me, and the next thing I knew my pappy was dumping a bucket of cold water over my head and saying something about how I was not getting out of my chores that easily. It was all very confusing. Anyway, Brunhilda made a quick departure after that and I ended up in the barn with that bottle I have hidden behind the manure fork – so I guess things ain’t all so bad after all, I guess” he concluded drunkenly (and repeating himself in the same sentence!) with a dopey smile that is all too common among those who are already “half in the bag” at 1:30 in the afternoon, for Pete’s sake.

(Editorial Note: For the record, the unfortunate Praying Mantis, who was just minding his own business after mistaking that gray, dingy, obviously mistreated shirt for a rock where it might catch a moth or something, somehow managed to extricate itself from that shrieking mental patient of a shrew of a woman who was making such a fuss and eventually ended up in the potato patch, unharmed, thank goodness, where it spent the rest of the day looking like a stick and trying to get a quick snack while checking out all the female Praying Mantises who seem cuter and more sassy than usual this year, for some reason. Thank you.)

Oct 10, 2011

In one of those things that would only happen in a place like Lamont, a feisty yet forlorn anti-metropolis nestled against the barren, hellish wastes known somewhat politely as “The Scablands”. (Oh, who came up with that name! Talk about a complete and total lack of a marketing orientation!) Anyway, as the old adage goes, “Where there is dirt, there are weeds” (Okay, I just made that adage up - but freedom of the press belongs to those who own one!!) – and believe you me, Lamont has more than its fair share of dirt, and not just the growing kind, either. So, given this volatile mix of regularly tilled soil, above average rainfall, interstate trucking from international ports over on the coast and an above average propensity for bad things to happen, the lowly town of Lamont (Oh, they are not even a city! Given their lack of population, they are defined as just a measly little town! Think of the psychological strain and humiliation that can put on an electoral body, for Pete’s sake!) has been struck by a non-native weed that has radically altered the social and cultural dynamic which was hanging by a thread in the first place. Yes, Lamont and the surrounding area have a Stage 4 infestation of the dreaded ‘Lunas Hippicus’ weed, known in farm/ranch circles more simply as “Loco Weed”.

“Oh great! That’s all I need right now!” lamented Wilber Festoon, 54, an area farmer/rancher and heir to the tarnished and tattered Festoon farm/ranch dynasty! “First, my little girl (She is 23 and well over 16 stone!!) has got it in her head to go get tattoos and piercings on parts of the body me and the wife never even knew existed, then my son goes to the slammer after getting caught up in some illegal ‘bull wrestling’ ring, and I do not have the time or the inclination to outline my wife’s quite extensive incongruities, we could be here for days, but now the whole herd is all hopped up 24/7 on some dern weed that seems to grow with some proclivity (more like reckless abandon!) in these parts, although I can’t seem to get wheat to grow here to save my life! (Maybe that has something to do with drinking a 12-pack before getting on the tractor!) Yeah, that is just great!” he sniveled in typical farmer/rancher fashion – which can be downright annoying if you ponder it for any length of time, given that totally bogus reputation they have for rugged individualism and the untamed American spirit and all of those other Hollywood lies about farmers/ranchers – at least the farmers/ranchers in these parts, anyway. (Editorial Note: The Lamont Blog believes that farmers/ranchers in other parts of the country do indeed live up to their cultural stereotypes, but the area ones leave more than a little to be desired in their manly pursuits and world view – except for the area women, of course, who seem to excel in these areas. So please, do not fall into the trap of generalizing our local farmers/ranchers with the national variety – like in Texas or Iowa or other normal places like that where the men who serve on the County Fire Department don’t start crying when asked by the town to use a fire hydrant to put out fires or whatever. Thank you!!)

“So, me and the wife went down to the back pasture and I’ll be dadburned if the whole herd wasn’t down there sitting around some bonfire, singing “Moo-Bai-Ya” and chewing on that dang Loco weed like it was going out of style!” said the flummoxed farmer/rancher while wiping the chewing tobacco juice off his shiny, pointy-toed, multi-colored, highly-embroidered 'cowboy' boot.. “And to top that all off, then one of the cows came up, saying he was now their new union representative from the International Bovine Brotherhood Local 642, and he was demanding that I rent some fancy cattle truck and drive the whole mess of them over there to that New York City so they could participate with their cultural soul mates in the “Occupy Wall Street” protest where all them hippie types who don’t know how to clean up after themselves and go to the bathroom wherever the need strikes them are proving how worthless they are! I don’t so much mind them cows getting all stoned and doing funny things with their hides, (or the wannabe hippies, either!) but I’ll be dadburned if I am going to go carting them all the way across the country so they can protest the very people who help set cattle future prices in some significant yet indirect way! A man has to draw the line somewhere, I reckon!” he said with whatever tattered remains of self-dignity he could muster in a pinch - although this meager bravado was largely sad and transparent! (Editorial Note: No animals or worthless, anti-social hippies were harmed in the making of this Blog article. Thank you!)

Oct 1, 2011

The humble town of Lamont, a charming berg that thru a series of social, cultural, educational and laziness-related unfortunate circumstances, not to mention the meddlesome interference and hijinks of the patron saint of Lamont – 'Bad Luck' himself, never managed until now to put in a flush toilet or a simple sink or whatever. (Editorial Note: This "Bad Luck" archetype is depicted in popular local myth/lore as dressing just like Zorro - cape and all!!! What is that all about? What does Zorro have to do with not having a flush toilet after 100 years of failure? That in and of itself is really rather disturbing - more so, in fact, than being a town for 100 years and not having a public bathroom! There is some really disturbed thinking going on there! Thank you!) Anyway, this little town has the quite extensive US Conspiracy Theory community with a bee in their bonnet after word leaked out that Lamont was on the verge of getting its first public flush toilet in over 100 years. This implausible rumor of modern plumbing is even more shocking because it was opposed by the area fire fighters (who also opposed using fire hydrants – seems they have a problem with water or something, which is more than a tad ironic - but appears normal in the context of the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA)!), it was attacked by area church types who view any change as the devil’s handiwork, and it was scorned by the thankfully small segment of the population who doesn’t like to bathe and since a toilet is associated with the room the shower is in – well, it was guilt by association or something.

“Well, we pretty much have one of them fake moon landing scenarios like they tried to pull on us during the hippie era, right here in doggone Lamont, dadburn it!” said Chester Bodine, 56, an area farmer/rancher and unabashed flaky nut-case who sees conspiracies everywhere, even in his breakfast cereal, for Pete's sake. " (There is something unnatural and creepy about those unholy 'Lucky Charms' with all those weird marshmallow things that ain't really marshmallows that come in colors that no self-respecting marshmallow would ever appear in public with and all of that, so he might be onto something there - but we don't want to encourage Mr. Bodine in any way. Thank you.) “Heck, that moon landing thing was as fake as Old Man Festoon's teeth and any dern fool with a lick of sense knows that Lamont don’t have the political will nor the fancy know-how to put one of them dern things in! It is all one big hoax to lure the nation into another false sense of complacency so that there one world government or whatever can take over and the next thing we know we have to start saying 'comrade' to everybody and them people will make us watch that fancy ballet from that Red Square over there in Russia (sadly pronounced "Rusher") or what have you. And the dern media is in on it, too! I knew the minute Lamont made the front page of the Spokane paper (not the Police Blotter for a change, thank goodness!) that that darn main stream media was up to their usual tomfoolery. Then Lamont got one of the best water systems in small town America, thanks to Century West Engineering, with water so pure it hardly registered on that water testing thingamabob or whatever that is! Clean water, who needs it? I've been drinking water from under the cow pasture for years and it ain't hurt me none!" he stammered with that pronounced facial tic that can be so distracting! "Then, out of nowhere, more than half the town got paved! Or did they just make us believe it got paved? How do we know that is really pavement with sidewalks and not some fancy commie gravel that just makes us think it is pavement? You ever asked yourself that? And finally, that darn Whitman County gave Lamont a huge grant for a new library, like that ain’t a sign of the end times or something. That is all we need – more people reading! So, all of that was bad, but a flush toilet in Lamont – come on! That is just nonsense, I tell you! Some things are just beyond rational probability!” he fumed, bordering on a full-blown snit/temper tantrum.

Sep 19, 2011

In another testament to the outrageously deep talent pool that is sported by the premier engineering powerhouse in the Pacific Northwest, those go-getters at Century West Engineering just decided to take a little road trip given that things were slightly slower than usual in the normally bustling office due to the unfortunate reality of one of those annoying and all-too-frequent holiday weekends. This firm of engineering professionals, who have nothing to prove to the world, EVER!!, given that they successfully installed a new water system, built new roads and managed a library construction project in Lamont, Washington, (As if any sane person can believe they were actually able to accomplish all those amazing things in Lamont of all places!!!) – anyway, these engineering types just decided to not let a few minutes slip by unharnessed so, while multi-tasking, they basically re-engineered the entire Apollo program from scratch one afternoon in the coffee break room – but they, of course, had the good sense to skip that whole ‘Apollo 13’ thing and all of that unnecessary drama that it brought to the beleaguered nation’s doorstep, thank goodness. (Like we didn't have enough to worry about back then with all of those brightly colored yet malodorous hippies marching everywhere, that soul-crushing Sonny and Cher Show with all that mesmerizing glitter, and that annoying 'Soviet menace/Commie hoard' thing!)

“Well, at this point, nothing that company does that pushes the envelope of human understanding and endurance could surprise me, no sir!!” said a former mayor from the 700 block of Spokane Street who asked not to be identified. “I mean, a moon landing is awesome and all, but is that really that big of a deal given that they had to put up with our citizenry during three major projects, not including the best small town flagpole anywhere! Use your head! Sure, the moon with its 1/7th Earth’s gravity, huge temperature swings and complete lack of atmosphere can seem pretty inhospitable and daunting, but during our road project we had any number of local females marching up and down the streets in short-shorts and bippy tops, shouting 'hey ya'll' and trying to sell the construction workers soft drinks for $2.50! Oh, it was horrid! (The Lamont Blog hasn't consumed a soda since!) And then, when they added the new water system, people would flock out into the streets in fuzzy slippers and tattered bathrobes in -10 F weather, making suggestions on how to dig a hole. Oh, and that poor engineer and the library project! I cannot even imagine what a 'living hell' that poor soul went thru, given that he had to manage the volunteer effort to erect the thing! So yeah, travelling to the Earth’s major celestial satellite that controls our tides and makes people go crazy (I won’t even mention that whole werewolf thing! Yikes!!) is pretty impressive, but their real achievements took place right here on ‘terra firma’, if you ask me!” he said resolutely. (Editorial Note: Hey, who is asking you? You ain’t mayor no more! That Ruth Simpson is running the place, and thank goodness she is! Look at what a ‘pig’s breakfast’ you made of the job! But we have to agree with you on one thing and one thing only. Working in Lamont is a magnitude of difficulty greater than landing on the measly moon. Thank you!)

Sep 16, 2011

The Town of Lamont, a perplexing yet humble hamlet with a heart of gold (and a weird, deep-seated set of sympathies for the Vikings with all that pillaging and rapine! Whoa!), is contemplating finally leaving the USA in favor of throwing their quite questionable prestige behind some small European country most famous for that Hamlet guy who got chased around by ghosts or something and where everyone speaks that fancy kind of English – or at least it seemed that way in some black and white movie we saw once. Lamont, whose loyalties to the USA have been in some dispute for around 40 years given its pro-lawlessness, anti-education, and decidedly anarchy-friendly world view, seems to think that attaching themselves to some country that was founded by the Vikings with all of those raiding parties, burning stuff down and taking things that don’t belong to them might, in fact, be a better fit for the town than the USA with all those laws, expectations to perform and other rules that just seem to put a damper on their natural urges to drink mead all day long, live communally with women in long, wooden houses, smash up stuff they don’t like and never bathe, insiders report.

“Whoa! I always felt part Viking in my heart, but after I somehow caught a glimpse of that Helle Thorning-Schmidt person, I realized I was born in the wrong doggone country!” said Goober Bodine, 56, an area farmer/rancher and school board member. “Dang, in this country we get Hillary as some sort of so-called leader – but those doggone Danes obviously have their heads screwed on straight, unlike those stupid Americans. (Those? Ain’t you a dadburn American no more?) “Who cares if she is from some Center-Left coalition – heck, she could be a dadburn commie for all I care, but if she put her hair up in braids and donned some of that Viking body armor I would follow her anywhere – even to do battle with her ancient enemy Schleswig-Holstein!” he stammered pathetically with some sick, puppy-love look in his beady little eyes. (Editorial Note: The Lamont Blog does not endorse this sickening devotion to outward appearance and feels certain that Ms. Thorning-Schmidt is more than worthy for this challenging position based on her political savvy and above average intelligence. Just because she fits everyone’s conception of the ultimate Viking warrior goddess of old, like some attractive blending of ‘Heidi’ and ‘Joan of Arc’, should in no way hamper her very real contributions as a democratic leader of one of Europe’s most stable nations! This is the year 2011, for Pete’s sake! Things like outrageous, unbelievable, almost supernatural beauty should not matter now! Thank you!)

“Well, living in the town just down the road from Lamont, I ain't so sure them moving over there to one of them European countries would be such a bad thing for them, if you ask me!” said a civic leader from a neighboring town. “Well, most of Lamont is somewhat normal and law abiding, (What???) but there are a few ruffians who don’t have an education and spend all of their lives stealing gas, racing around in loud cars of uncertain ownership and causing trouble, so if you get rid of Lamont, you get rid of the reprobates, too! I just wonder if there ain’t some way we could somehow help move this thing along, you know, as some kind of community service event or something” he concluded hopefully.

Sep 15, 2011

The humble town of Lamont, still licking its wounds from the shellacking it received at the hands of that doggone vacation wonderland Long Beach, WA (Editorial Note: Thou shalt not mention that name!!! We smite thee! Oh, cursed be that vacation wonderland Long Beach! May the plagues of Egypt be like a mere Sunday stroll compared to Long Beach's coming judgement for crushing the lowly and largely unattractive Lamont with its lack of basic amenities, things to see/do and spotty population density! Oh, we curse thee, you delightful, tourist-friendly Babylon with some really great places to eat and all those cool kites! May the fleas of 1000 camels infest your charming, well-managed Town Hall!! May your fancy high speed network develop vapor lock and may enormous clams clog up your delightful downtown business district, too! Whoa, I'm running out of curses here! What the?!?!?! Long Beach must have hexed me!! Well, may you be forced to endure all those other curses I cannot think of right now, too!!!), decided their only hope at generating tourist revenue was to fall back on its inherent strengths (okay, it only has one, so that should be ‘strength’), a complete and total rejection of modernity and all that entails and a desire to return to a more simple, fire hydrant-less era without all that fancy medicine, hygiene, transportation, communications and where being uniformly and aggressively ignorant of the world was the norm and not the embarrassing exception.

“Well, Long Beach, although a harsh task-master, taught us a very valuable lesson. When you run with the big boys you are liable to get trampled under the slashing hooves of your municipal betters!” said Chester Snopes, an area farmer and the guy most single-handedly responsible for keeping Lamont pressed tightly against the loving bosom of the pre-industrial age. “Sure, we rose above our station when we tried to compete against a charming seaside paradise that actually has stores and restaurants and a beautiful beach with real sand, but let one never say that Lamont cannot learn from its crushing defeats and will not always spring back to fail spectacularly in some other area! We may be laggards, but we are scrappy laggards!” he said proudly, stubbing the toe of his manure covered cowboy boot with all that fancy stitching into one of the few healthy-looking clumps of grass in Bug Tussle Park – the town park named after the original home of the Beverly Hillbillies – if you can believe that. “So, we all got together in Scooter Bodine’s still unpainted (after 72 years!) and manure-filled barn (last shoveled out when Truman was President!!) and decided that enough was enough. Why should we continue to swim upstream like some over-achieving salmon and all when we could just stop swimming and let the current flush our bloated municipal carcass out to sea where it belongs and where metaphorical crabs, seagulls and other critters could pick our bones clean and put an end to all this nonsense once and for all” he said, voicing one of the 2 or 3 most coherent sentences he ever produced in all of his 56 years of torturing the poor English language.

“But then we realized, if all us here farmers and ranchers feel this way about this crazy modern world and all the demands it puts on a feller, there has to be others like us, so why not position Lamont to be a place where people who fundamentally reject the modern era and refuse to bathe can come to blow off a little steam and stick their heads in the local sand with like-minded folk?” he beamed proudly! “Heck, it is just a matter of being true to one’s own nature – and the good part is we won’t have to change a doggone thing to make this place 16th century friendly, neither! Sure, I was the one who lead the fight against using them new-fangled fire hydrants, which was my duty as a local fire fighter, but we can just cover them up with little hay stacks or something and people will never know they are there. It ain’t like we ever planned on using the stupid things anyway, although we promised the town we would! So yeah, we can now be the new ‘Anti-Long Beach’ where people come not to eat and gaze upon some beautiful ocean and stay at swanky hotels or whatever, but where simple folks can just dig a hole or something for shelter, scratch and pick and complain about how the world has gone wrong! There has to be at least a dozen or so people in this here country that would snap at the chance to return to some pre-soap, pre-flush toilet, pre-book learning era where men were men and, as a rule, they all smelled pretty darn bad! (You should see these guys when they show up for town business meetings with outsiders! Yikes! We wish we were making this up!) I think we are really onto something here!!” he said proudly before scattering the chickens as he marched up to his sod cabin to tell the wife (not that he had to tell her anything about his plans!!) to put an extra pig’s foot in the pot just in case some Luddite-like laggard got the word already and would show up for dinner in the new vacation Mecca for the flotsam left in the wake of America in the 21st century, for crying out loud!!

Sep 8, 2011

Century West Engineering, a rock of stability for good in a world gone totally mad, has somehow managed to survive and even flourish in spite of the fact that they have been involved with the 2nd smallest town in the Great State of Washington for well over 6 years. This almost unheard of feat of emotional, organizational, interpersonal and psychological stability goes a long way in explaining why this regional engineering powerhouse has almost single-handedly improved the infrastructure of the entire Pacific Northwest, to say nothing of providing outrageously pure drinking water, paving over half the town, engineering a quite impressive flagpole and facilitating a new library in Lamont; a forlorn, some might say half-baked hamlet nestled up against the forbidding scablands in the otherwise beautiful Palouse region of Eastern Washington.

“Good gravy, man! We have thrown every bit of inane dysfunction we have at them and it didn’t even make a doggone dent!” exclaimed Wilber Festoon, 56, a area farmer/rancher and self-proclaimed 'civic leader'. “I mean, normally when organizations get the “Lamont Treatment” with all that entails, it is only a matter of weeks or months until catastrophic organizational disintegration takes place, the home office gets boarded up and whatever investors there are that have not committed suicide sell everything they own, change their names and move to some unfortunate village in Costa Rica that doesn’t even have running water or electricity. But somehow Century West Engineering (CWE) just seems to get better and better, doggone it, regardless of how much insane tomfoolery, scatological inefficiency, convoluted misdirection and political and social backwardness we throw their way! (like the local firefighters not wanting to use fire hydrants from a new $1.3 million water system!!) That just ain’t right!” bellowed the flummoxed Mr. Festoon, a local firefighter and the President of the brazenly oxymoronic “Greater Lamont Business Development Association” (GLBDA). “It just seems that regardless of what we do they just continue to be happy, focused, professional and eager to get the job done! It’s like they ain’t even human or something!” he concluded with a shudder while grasping his crucifix and spitting three times to ward off the evil eye!

(Editorial Note: When Century West Engineering first became involved with Lamont, Lamont’s water system was on the verge of being condemned, but CWE acquired a water planning grant and then planned and of course implemented one of the most awesome water systems in all 50 states. (with 82 psi) Then, when the citizens were dropping like flies due to excessive road dust (so, what was the problem there?), Century West came in and thru an outrageously generous grant from the Transportation Improvement Board (TIB) (thank you Greg Partch and company!) managed to pave over half the town. And then, when Lamont needed to add a flagpole to prove once and for all that they did in fact belong to the United States of America (there is still some debate on this point!!), Dennis Fuller and his team of go-getter experts provided the critical calculations (the base for this monster needed to be over 6 feet deep, for Pete’s sake!) and finally, Lamont was the only town in Whitman County without a library or flush toilet (go figure!) and CWE has been instrumental in consulting on the purchasing, planning and implementation of this library project – a project that in other normal towns would have been a seemingly straightforward thing but in Lamont, assuming CWE was not involved, would be more akin to a modern military campaign like D-Day ending in crushing defeat against a smaller, more primitive opponent that doesn’t even know how to use metal and runs around with blue face paint making strange guttural noises like in that 'Lost World' movie or whatever. So yes, CWE is amazing, and their surviving and succeeding, even in the crucible that is Lamont, is a lasting monument to their excellence and astounding human endurance for all future generations to gaze upon with reverent awe and wonder! Thank you, CWE, for setting the example for us all - oh yeah, and for that new library flush toilet thing after over 100 years of being a town!! Oh, and for putting up with us even though we are crazy! And for all those complex water reports you help with that the State makes us do! Oh yeah, and for that nice woman who always answers the phone so sweetly when we call with really stupid questions. And thanks for putting up with us given that we are crazy!) (you said that already, you loon!!)

Sep 6, 2011

The Town of Lamont, a town so small that it was necessary to combine town-sponsored public service messages in order to save precious tax dollars given that they are putting in a new library this year, is attempting to foster the all-important ‘human experience’ of living in the 2nd smallest town in the State while also vainly attempting to stomp out the unspeakable scourge as represented by some frightening, creepy, unnatural, ‘other-worldly’ canine abomination – known politely in some circles as the common “Pug”. This communication effort, consisting of a saturation campaign utilizing colorful (yet disturbing!) flyers (printed on recycled paper!) being taped to every telephone pole in town and left on the windshields of all the cars that will still move under their own power (Editorial Note: This is only about 22% of the total vehicles in the dern town, for crying out loud!! This stupid ad campaign should say “Hugs, not old rusty hulks that make your yard look like heck and make everyone think of a bad ‘redneck’ joke”! Come on, people! Focus!) Anyway, this ad campaign is expected to run until the town actually starts hugging one another and also refuses to buy dogs whose faces look like they ran into something as a puppy or the town leadership moves onto some other stupid boondoggle of an idea, or both, insiders report.

“Well, as I see it, the town has two main problems. Number 1 – we don’t like each other and hope everyone else catches a terminal disease, and number 2 – having weird looking dogs is unnatural and tends to depress people as they walk around the town and/or go get their mail or whatever!” said a town leader who has a normal looking dog of uncertain parentage, although it does have unconfirmed behavioral issues involving pant legs. “So, we just decided that promoting hugs, although unreasonable and farfetched in reality given our citizenry, was a step in the right direction and, of course, discouraging people from acquiring those so-called dogs, the pugs, is a good idea on too many levels to discuss here, believe me. So, the only question was how to communicate these very important concerns to a citizenry who is notoriously hard to reach. Sure, we could have advertised on the Jerry Springer show and would have captured 98.6% of the town (many in the audience!!), but with a budget of $10.00 this was deemed cost prohibitive. Then we considered an ad on Google, but no one in town uses the computer so that would have had a poor cost-to-target-market-reach ratio. So we just decided to print up about 25 flyers and have one of the teenagers walk around town and put them on any car that they think is still running. All we can do now is hope for the best, I guess. We certainly don’t expect some unholy ‘hug-a-thon’ like a hippie convention or nothing, but if we can keep the town from being overrun by a bunch of snub-nosed ankle-biters, we will, of course, declare it a huge success!” she concluded optimistically while pulling her dog back from some unsuspecting pant leg.

Aug 30, 2011

The town of Lamont, a humble berg nestled in the loving arms of the forbidding, spooky, primeval “Scablands” in the otherwise beautiful Palouse in Eastern Washington, has finally said ‘enough is enough’ and enacted a stringent set of punishments for a hidden sub-set of the nation’s inherent bigotries – the troubling and oftentimes hilarious propensity for people to make fun of hicks and rednecks, not to mention that whole ‘Hillbilly Culture’ thing. “Well, this is 2011, for crying out loud, so this blatant verbal, cultural and interpersonal discrimination against 8th grade drop outs, people who have dozens of junk cars in their yards and who often fail to shower even after working with cows for a couple of weeks, must now stop!” said Jethro Snopes, 56, a local farmer and regional president of the NAACF (National Association For The Advancement Of Country-fied Folks!!) “Sure, our kids don’t work or go to school and just drive around town all day long on stolen gas, gunning their engines and yelling grammatically incorrect diatribes out their open car windows (that are blaring out Rap music, which really doesn’t make any sense if you think about it! Where are Hank and Willy and the boys, for crying out loud?), And sure, we throw garbage in our yards and have about a dozen dogs each that have never darkened the door of a vet! And, oh yeah, all of us have a passel of kids out of wedlock that are on County assistance and all, but that don’t mean them fancy people need to go calling us hicks and rednecks and all of that. And them very same people will never hire us for them jobs that we do not even have the basic work ethic to complete successfully and where all the tools from the jobsite would likely come up missing if they did hire us, for crying out loud! That’s just so wrong! This is America! We have our rights! One of them rights, the first one, I think, is that we deserve things that don't belong to us and people need to lavish praise on us for never doing anything of import!! It's in that there Constitution, ain't it?” he whined/sniveled pathetically/ignorantly, somehow forgetting about the responsibilities that quite naturally go hand-in-hand with the actual rights we do indeed have!

“Well, this is our town and we make the laws here, and I’ll be dadburned if we got to go letting a bunch of snooty, brainiac people with them fancy high school diplomas go telling us that our ways that worked just fine in the mountains of West Virginia and Arkansas before even them people kicked us out (one step ahead of the Law!!) ain’t good enough for the local delicate sensibilities!” (They had to go somewhere when they got run off from back there in the hills, we guess! But why Lamont? Why is it always Lamont? Oregon is nice, ain't it?) said Skeeter Bodine, 52, an area rancher, church board member and former president of the NAACF before he was forced to resign in disgrace after his daughter somehow managed to miraculously graduate from the local high school, thanks in no small part to unwarranted social promotion and the fact that she was, in fact, 23 years of age. “Heck, just the other day my momma was looking for a new spit cup to match her apron, so she asked the girl in that fancy college town store in Cheney for some assistance, and I’ll be dadburned if that girl just didn’t break out laughing right in my momma’s face and whisper something under her breath as she showed my sweet momma to the coffee cup aisle! First off, any dern fool knows that a real lady don’t use no stinking coffee cup to spit tobacco juice in, and second, you would think that a woman in the somewhat tarnished and tattered ‘Golden Years” of her life had never asked for a dadburn color coordinated spit cup before! I mean, come on! That is blatant discrimination! It's fine when we do it to other people, you know what I mean, but its just plain wrong when its done to us and ours! Heck, my momma was treated differently because of her complete and total lack of social and cultural mores and for the fact that she raised about a dozen felonious kids that never managed to assimilate into the larger culture with all of its fancy laws and obligations and all that nonsense! Like that is a bad thing! I thought we had moved past that as a nation!” he fumed indignantly!

“So yeah, for a first offence, we now have the right to ‘tar and feather’ any person who mutters a disparaging word against hicks or rednecks or somehow implies that getting an education is a good thing. And yeah, repeat offenders will basically be treated like horse thieves of old, although we really never understood why people back then would go getting so excited about one man stealing something from another man, even if it was a horse! Heck, that is half the fun of living in this here America!” he beamed patriotically, discolored saliva running down is chin. “We just ain’t going to go tolerating that bigotry around here no more, and we got most of the town folk, the area farmer/rancher community and area hick churches behind us, too! Come on, people! Hicks are Americans, dadburn it, and the few among us who ain't convicted felons got the doggone vote, so it is about time that that there high-fluting Supreme Court and all them Legislaturers (sic) started sticking up for us, ain’t it?” he stammered with true Jeffersonian solemnity while wondering if that forgetful Mrs. Jenkins left the locking gas cap off her minivan again since his tank was getting kind of low. “So listen here, Mr. Fancy-pants Foxworthy, you ain’t welcome in these here parts, unless you have a hankering for the sweet aroma of tar with a generous helping of yard-bird feathers thrown in for good measure!” he concluded with what little dignity he could muster while still wondering where he could get his momma the perfect spit cup.

(Editorial Note: Although painful to remember and easily flushed from long-term memory for sanity preservation sake, it is necessary to recount that Lamont's only park is, in fact, named after the original mountain home of that iconic American family, the Beverly Hillbillies. Yes, although shocking, Lamont's park is called "Bug Tussle" which, not coincidentally, is where Uncle Jed, while looking for some food, missed an easy shot, and up from the ground came a bubbling crude and all of that. We will leave it to our loyal readers to garner the appropriate response to this troubling and somewhat disturbing point of historical fact. Thank you!!)

Aug 8, 2011

In a unanimous 5-0 vote, an area church board voted to drop all pretense of so-called Christian love and piety and all of that rigmarole and to return to the refreshing, fun, easy to understand ‘Good Old Days” where a few self-appointed “elect” can pretty much do whatever they want to whoever they want – all in the name of religion or faith or spiritual purity or whatever. “Well, this is a way for this church in particular to get back to our real roots and to be honest to our actual world view” said Gomer Snopes, 54, an area rancher, fire fighter and church board member. “I mean, we have used this here church to further our less-than-godly agenda for decades, but we were always hampered by having to maintain the perception of following that outdated bible and all that ‘love thy neighbor’ nonsense. Those unwashed heathen were forever throwing that fact up in our faces, for crying out loud! What is the purpose of getting a strangle-hold on a small rural church if you cannot use it to exact pain on anyone who doesn’t do what you say and/or admit how great you are? Forget that whole silly “Lord’s Vineyard” thing, we want to control everyone and enrich ourselves in the process, and that is less than efficient when you have some old book and the truly inhibiting words of the True Jesus chained to your ankle! We just thought it would be more honest and truthful to our real natures if we just came out in favor of returning to an earlier and more glorious, to say nothing of fun, period of Christian history where everyone knew where they stood and where people like us were at the top of the heap dispensing cruel and disproportional justice as the fickle whim struck us - all for the greater good, of course! And I am sure there will be no shortage of new, eager, devoted converts, neither! Heck, half the ranchers in these parts have been waiting for something like this - to say nothing of the criminal classes - thus we cannot help but fill our coffers with even more mammon or filthy lucre or whatever! How can that be a bad thing?” he concluded piously with an eerie red glint in his watery, beady, little eyes! (eyes made watery by the sulfur stench that seems to follow him everywhere, for some reason!)

“Heck, if that there church gets back to that “Old Time” religion that I have always secretly longed for late at night while thinking my dark, disturbing thoughts, wild horses will not be able to keep me from attending that dern church, no sir!!” said John Crudmeyer, 53, an area home-churcher but a man who can grasp the obvious benefits of instilling organized discipline amongst his heathen, unwashed neighbors who are actually representative of 98% of modern Americans, the poor things. “I mean, who doesn’t like to see a good old witch burning, even if the wretch is not a witch but just some poor old grandmother who didn’t wave at you when you drove by her house or whatever because she didn't have her glasses on!!” said Crudmeyer. “And who among us doesn’t like to drag some poor, squealing, sniveling wretch into a dank root cellar and strap them to some disgusting, demonic device that is certain to make them about 10 inches taller with a few simple twists of a crank! Oh yeah, and which one of us does not like to heat branding irons to a white-hot intensity and wave them around in some poor guy's face as he hangs suspended 4 inches above the filthy, straw-covered floor by jagged rusty manacles! It is all a matter of being honest to one’s true motivations – so if that there church does what they say they are going to, whoa, they have a new member, doggone it! I even got a bunch of hefty old timbers in my storage unit that would be perfect to make one of those public stock things out of! You know, those things you force someone’s hands and head into so they bake in the hot sun while people throw rotten vegetables at them and call them filthy names! Now that is a project I could devote my true latent energies to – not all that sissy “help the poor and feed the orphans” nonsense that most churches only give meager lip service to. Finally there is a church in these parts that knows what it is all about - just like in the Dark Ages, before all at 'Age of Enlightenment' nonsense that ruined the whole world!!!! I just hope they let me be one of the top guys who decide people’s fate and not some lower level functionary that might, at any given moment, be dragged down into some dank dungeon on some trumped up charge or whatever. That would really stink!!” he concluded with his usual smug, condescending, contrived modesty and outrageous, cheeky, insincere understatement.

Jul 28, 2011

In a bold move that has Town insiders long averse to change of any kind shaking their heads in nervous apprehension, the Town Council voted in a nail-biting 3-2 vote to relegate the tried-and-true “Rump Shaker” dance move to the dustbin of history in favor of that new, fancy, potentially satanic, ultra-modern “Hokey Pokey” as the official dance of the 2nd smallest Town in the State. The Town of Lamont, a berg that is amazingly over 100 years old but firmly rooted in the murky, ignorant, superstitious past, does not take change easily (as demonstrated by the almost psychopathic resistance to the town’s first flush toilet by a shockingly diverse segment of the area population to include church leaders, fire fighters and farm types!! Whoa!) and this brazen, some-might-say reckless break with tradition is almost certainly going to increase the profound angst and jittery natures of an already nervous and insecure citizenry who long ago gave up on participating in the post-1950’s America that a vast majority of us all know and love.

“Well, I know that throwing caution to the wind and taking such a brave step into the unknown is likely to not sit well with the voting public who resents paved roads and clean drinking water as unnecessary inconveniences that are just another thing to worry about and fix when they break and all of that, but Lamont has an image to uphold - tarnished and tattered as it may be – so replacing the “Rump Shaker” with a more modern, contemporary, stylish dance move just seemed in order” said Greta Belcher, a town councilwoman of 43 years. “Sure, in many ways, the primitive, earthy “Rump Shaker” did tend to communicate the very essence of a municipality that values lawlessness and disorder and that feels doing nothing is always better than actually getting off one’s dead rear end and doing something (Anything! We'll take anything!), but as a sworn town leader, sometimes those tough, controversial decisions fall on my sloped and sagging shoulders, that’s all” said the area vanguard of social change while shooting at a crow with her BB gun! (She missed, thank goodness! What a crappy shot!) “I mean, the “Rump Shaker” was brought to this country many years ago by our less savory and socially laggardly ancestors who in turn carried it from the dark, forbidding forests of Gaul where it was frequently employed after some poor Roman Legion or another was mercilessly slaughtered by hoards of smelly barbarians with blue face paint and crude bronze and bone implements, so in that way it was quite appropriate for the modern Lamont, but these times, they are a changing - as that rock-and-roll song says, so those snarky and laggardly voters will just have to get over it at some point, I guess” she concluded bravely with only a hint of madness in her red, porcine, and shockingly/disturbingly beady little eyes!

“Well, of course we give all of our customers excellent service and Lamont, even with the “Rump Shaker”, is no exception, but I cannot help but see this refreshing change in the direction of the mid-20th century as a welcome social improvement” said an unnamed Century West Engineering professional who asked not to be identified to protect the privacy of her parrots and/or her bon-bon making "baroness" sister or whatever. (see previous story) “Normally, a world class organization like Century West would not even notice things like official town dance moves or whatever, but I guess that pretty much the whole town will break into those horrific and quite unsettling pelvic gyrations for almost any reason whatsoever, and that, over time, tends to add a level of unwelcome complexity and somewhat nauseating inefficiency to the projects that we do out there in Lamont. Sure, it is somewhat perversely quaint in a medieval, barbaric, pagan sort of way and all, but having scores of unnaturally energetic and well-fleshed rear-ends shaking all over the place every few minutes or so tends to distract from all those mathematical equations and stress load calculations that Century West is so famous for across the globe. We can and have worked successfully in that surreal environment for many years, of course, as demonstrated by the world class water system Lamont has, and those beautiful roads and sidewalks that solved the Town’s flooding problems, and of course with the new library that is currently under work, but as a general rule, reducing unnecessary and profoundly disturbing/stomach-churning distractions can only make the engineering environment that much more efficient and effective, that's all” she concluded with her usual understatement and genteel modesty while stroking the head of an African Gray parrot - a breed of bird (closely related to the doggone dinosaurs, for Pete's sake! Check out their feet!) that is rumored to be as smart as a human 5 year-old, for crying out loud!

Jun 19, 2011

In a sad testament to the area feline population’s ability to adapt to the modern world with all of those ‘new fangled’ fish bowls and aquariums, not to mention vacuum cleaners, dispose-alls and other ear splitting devices like home coffee grinders that tend to send the supposed household 'alpha-predators' scurrying under the nearest bed, an area guppy has resorted to just shaking his head in disgust after almost 3 years of safely swimming in the same fish bowl in a house filled with numerous cats without the decidedly bored aquatic sojourner so much a suffering a scratch or losing a fin or part of his multi-colored tail or whatever, area fish bowl insiders report.

“Well, as a rule, guppies are known in the veterinarian community for their ‘devil-may-care’, some might say reckless disregard for all the instinctive protocols of personal safety and enlightened self-interest, so when one of the finned risk-takers is faced with a house full of supposedly efficient and predatory house cats, their natural tendency is to throw caution to the wind and take that challenge head on and to just see who comes out on top” said Dr. Susan Finkermann, 56, an area veterinarian and renowned fish expert. “So, contrary to all the known stereotypes about frightened fish fleeing to go hide in some brightly colored but 'hard to defend' underwater castle or whatever or to briskly retreat to some pathetic forest of fake plastic plants that should have, if the owner had any self-respect, been replaced years ago, the average guppy will swim right to the surface of whatever water they are in – taunting whatever primary predator that runs rough-shod in that particular ecosystem they find themselves in – even the common American household, or so it would appear. Anyway, this guppy, which still does not even have a proper name after who knows how many years - but who answers to the moniker “the fish”,(Editorial Note: The fish is unusually responsive - especially when accompanied with an expression of shock at having forgotten to dispense the fish food which, truth be known, seems to be an all-too-common occurrence for good taste, for Pete’s sake! I mean, how hard is it to remember to feed a fish once a day, for crying out loud!) Anyway, this intrepid terror of the seas will boldly swim right to the surface of the bowl as the seemingly normal but somewhat lackluster cats either try to claw at the sides of the glass enclosure and/or drink the fish bowl down to a more manageable level for attack or whatever. Who knows what the obviously limited ‘so-called’ predators are thinking, but whatever it is it is not very well formed nor well-thought out, given their decidedly dismal success rate after all these years!” said the animal expert with 22 years of hands on experience with the food chain. “It is all very disturbing and disconcerting, if you want my professional opinion” she said sadly, wondering why she went to Vet school in the first place and didn’t become a professional ballet dancer like that Russian woman, whatever her name is. (maybe being 6’2” and weighing 225 had something to do with that decision, too! Who knows!)

“Well, being a fan of police shows on TV, when I first got that guppy I just naturally assumed that the poor thing had some sort of death wish or whatever like the much vaulted “suicide by cop” technique used by some of the more disturbed perps, this guppy was attempting ‘suicide by cat’” said the guppy’s owner who asked not to be identified for obvious reasons (Can’t blame him there! Whoa!). “But then I began to observe this troubling behavior more closely and realized that the aquatic hell-raiser was in fact rushing the surface, slathered guppy fangs bared and at the ready, just looking for a fight to the finish! That was one disturbing life realization, let me assure you! I can safely say that I have not forgotten the fish food since, that is for sure! And I am even now working on coming up with an appropriate name for the thing, too. That is one creature that you don’t want to get on the wrong side of, let me tell you… I am just thankful that my cats are so inept and incompetent and have thus avoided the wrath of that cantankerous finned nightmare! That is all I need right now – an emergency trip to the vet to stitch up a paw or re-attach an ear or whatever.” he concluded solemnly while crossing himself and throwing salt over one shoulder before spitting three times.

Jun 4, 2011

Flags were immediately lowered to half mast amid the sounds of wailing sobs and gnashing of teeth when word leaked out that one of the mainstays of the local culture, a true American icon in his own right, James Arness, died comfortably in his sleep at 88, and not somehow defending the decidedly tarnished honor of Miss Kitty or getting his somewhat malodorous sidekick Festus out of one of those scrapes he got himself into in almost every episode. Arness, who appeared in 34 films, 12 television shows and five Gunsmoke made-for-TV movies, achieved an even more vaulted status in the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) where his portrayal of the towering Dodge City lawman with a heart of gold (and a six-shooter always at the ready!!) served as some sort of transformational influence and manly role model for area farmers/ranchers to revere and idolize, for whatever reason, given that he is just a fictional character.

“Dang it all, where was Doc when the Marshall was laid low? Where was that infernal saw-bones when the big man needed him to work his feeble magic?” shouted Goober Snopes, 56, an area rancher and co-chair of the Greater Lamont Bovine Association (GLBA), an area social and cultural organization. “I always knew that man was too weak and fumbling to come thru in a clutch! Oh, and poor Miss Kitty! I bet that poor fallen woman is just beside herself! I am sure she is driving herself into the poor house by giving away free shots of whiskey to every two-bit wrangler, thieving outlaw and no-good cattle rustler in a vain attempt to assuage her crushing grief - even though the Marshall never married her and made her an honest woman, although any dern fool could sense the romantic tension between the two of them! Oh, and I just know that Festus has gone back to the bottle again! He won’t live out the week, not with the good-hearted tomfoolery he manages to get himself into! Oh, this is just terrible! Oh, does this mean that those Gunsmoke marathons are going to decrease in frequency now that the best actor in the history of the stage has gone to the Pearly Gates?? If so, all I have to say is “Marshall, I ain’t far behind ya, brother!” he stammered tearfully, obviously suffering a broken heart and a somewhat misplaced sense of reality in the modern media age. “Oh, and what am I supposed to do with those three cases of pork rinds that UPS delivered to my single-wide just last week? It would be dang disloyal to partake in the delicate yet savory treats while watching any other show! I would feel like I was doing the Marshall and Miss Kitty dirty if I consumed my usual 3-4 bags watching ‘Big Valley’, ‘Bonanza’, ‘Wagon Train’, ‘Rawhide’ or ‘The Rifleman’! I just can’t soil the man’s memory like that!! Oh, what will I do with my life now? Now all I have is just sitting around the house, listening to the wife jabber on about how much she hates Lamont and to listen to all her insane plans for undermining the town so that they don’t ever have to use fire hydrants after all, their roads decay faster than expected, and that dern library with all that fancy book learning don’t ever get built! What sort of life is that for a rugged individualist battling the elements in the great American frontier, anyway? Oh, this is a dark day for all humanity, indeed! The end times are really upon us, just like my preacher at the area Cattleman’s church says! Oh, may the Lord have mercy on us all!” he whispered, gazing skyward with a look of a decidedly guilty man being unceremoniously frog-marched to the waiting gallows.

Those were not the only tears to be shed on the passing of this great man. At the American Pork Rind Association headquarters in Pigeon Forge, TN, ironically also home to that rancher vacation paradise “Dollywood”, gallons of moonshine were being sloshed around and several people were reported to have thrown themselves out of headquarter's windows (Thank goodness the building is only a single story!!!) because well over 90% of the nation’s pork rinds are consumed by farmers/ranchers in the Lamont area – and market research indicates that 90% of those are scarfed down during episodes of Gunsmoke! “Oh, we are ruined! Our once proud fried pig skin industry is going to the dustbin of history!” said a national pork rind spokesperson. “Darn you Marshall Dillon! Why couldn’t you live forever? Oh, what will we do now - especially since the Chinese have too much sense to eat fried pork skin?” she sobbed uncontrollably.

May 27, 2011

In yet another crushing blow to the self-esteem and self-image of the 2nd smallest town in the Great State of Washington, for the third time in as many weeks a seemingly docile and placid herd of bovines has thrown off the yoke of tyranny and risen up against their oppressors in order to set up a so-called ‘Grazers Paradise’ right here in the Palouse, for crying out loud! This herd, formerly belonging to Scooter Bodine, age 57, finally took matters into their own hands after decades of exploitation, being subject to the yearly “culls” where loved ones are unceremoniously dragged off in the middle of the night and never seen again, where all the young males are shamelessly castrated on a yearly basis for the boss-man’s sadistic pleasure – as well as the daily indignities of having to endure the smell of those constant BBQ’s from the big rancher house (that is really a single-wide trailer – but is a lot fancier than the barn that never even gets a lick of paint or might get shoveled out once or twice a year, given that area farmer laziness that seems to pervade this small part of the Palouse, anyway!) and that same house, of course, is set on a hill so that it can look down on the herd, both physically and metaphorically. “Good gravy, man! That is the third time in as many weeks that a herd just went nuts!” bellowed Chester Festoon, 56, an area rancher whose herd is now showing signs of discontentment and restlessness after decades of supposed ‘peaceful coexistence’. “Heck, that is the natural order of things! The ranchers are on the top and can derive as much benefit and profit from the bodies of the cows as we see fit – and the cows are just supposed to sit there as we exploit them so we can earn enough money for our annual trip to that vacation wonderland – Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, for crying out loud! That’s the way the dadburn system works!” he ranted passionately, bordering on a really annoying temper-tantrum. “Those dern cows are put on this earth to enrich us just like our Cow Church says, and regardless of how awfully we treat them or how often we forget to take hay out to them in the dry months, it is their part of the bargain to just stand their dumbly and act like cows – not like a bunch of hot-blooded revolutionaries with all those banners and slogans who seem hell-bent on setting up some sort of bovine utopia where all fences are laid low, where the artificial distinction of the herd is done away with, and where each cow must give according to its ability while receiving according to its needs! That’s just insane! How does a rancher fit into that scenario? Where do I fit in under than new global paradigm? And what the heck am I supposed to do if that nonsense infects my herd! I can hardly bring myself to drive out to inspect the herd with all of those "stink eyes' those dang cows give me now! Its a powder keg out there, I tell you! And I just bought a new, only slightly used flatbed truck with those cool exhaust pipes that stick up about 12 feet and make all that noise and the wife just put a 5 year supply of jumbo sized ‘Daisy Duke shorts’ on our dadburn credit card! (that was darn near maxed out from all those pork rind purchases! Whoa!) That is the last thing I need right now – this crazy bovine insurrection nonsense that is committed to destroying the established order of things! This is all just so disconcerting and confusing! Dang it all! I knew I should have stayed in school past the 8th grade – then maybe I might be able to figure out what to do!” he sniveled annoyingly! "Oh daddy, I know I was a rotten son, but please come back from the grave to tell me what to do with the commie infested herd! I know I was the dumbest of your sons so of course I inherited the ranch and all, but I need you now, daddy! Oh, daddy!" he whined pathetically while falling to his knees and sobbing!

“Well, with the fall of the Berlin Wall all those decades ago, Americans somehow grew complacent and lost their vigilance in the face of what was the biggest threat to our capitalistic system in the 20th century” said Dr. Festus Snopes, an area bovine political scientist. “So, it is somewhat ironic that the minute we no longer have to obsess over all of those ‘communist hoards’ sweeping over us, now we are faced with something even more diabolical and frightening – ‘communist herds’!! (Okay, we know you saw that one coming a mile away!) And these dern caldrons of political instability are right in our own backyard – and in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and maybe even in the District of Columbia, although the nation’s capitol has always been a hotbed of leftist commie intrigue and so that is no real surprise, if you think about it. I just don’t see how the Good Ol’ USA is going to pull these chestnuts from the fire of international revolutionary bovine zeal and all of that. I do find it ironic that the commie masterminds would see fit to unleash their nefarious plans at the nation’s weakest point – the Greater Lamont Metropolitan Area (GLMA) where farmers and ranchers are against libraries, flush toilets, painting town buildings after 60 years of decay, one-man-one-vote, and where even area church leaders support drunken mobs to help undermine the existing American institutions that we all take for granted - to say nothing about supporting the local crime families against the existing governmental entities tasked with maintaining law and order. Yep, they struck at America’s weakest point – and now there will be hell to pay for all of us!” he said gravely while rushing down into his root cellar with 3-4 cases of cheap beer, just in case things go south more quickly than expected!

May 22, 2011

In a stunning testament that breeding and genetic lineage is in fact 98.6% of success in life after all, in spite of all of that ‘make hay while the sun shines’, 'a stitch in time, saves nine' and, of course, that stupid ‘keep your nose to the grindstone’ nonsense that people, mainly parents, mother-in-laws and those pesky employers, like to endlessly yammer on about - an area gathering of seemingly normal citizens were observed chanting “We are not worthy, Lea!!” and “Baroness d'Bon-bon! Baroness d'Bon-bon!” after a local man allowed a few choice intimates to sample a shockingly generous assortment of homemade bon-bons given to him by Lea, the sister of Erika of Century West Engineering fame, aka ‘The uber-goddess of efficiency’. These said bon-bons, if that inadequate and decidedly plebeian term can be used in regard to such culinary excellence, (like calling the Mona Lisa 'one of them old paintings' or whatever!) were the source of widespread civil discord after proving once and for all that ‘No one can eat just one”.

“Well, I was trying to be nice and all and give a few of the church ladies a taste of excellence and refinement long absent in the stodgy wastes of Eastern Washington when the next thing I knew I was being pummeled senseless by countless purses as the suddenly enraged and desperate mob of normally genteel and erudite church ladies made a kamikaze lunge for my not unlimited bon-bon bag” said an area man who, although his bloodline and genetic lineage is suspect (to say the least!!) somehow befriended the quite capable and efficient Erika (truth be known, she took pity on the poor wretch, and made some vain and futile attempt to ‘rescue’ him from his own inane and self-destructive nature although his obviously inferior genetic makeup and decidedly withered family tree negated these gallant efforts quite easily) and thus she gave him some of these rare and beautiful ‘bon-bons’ made by her equally excellent and quite capable sister, Lea, the so-called 'Baroness' from the "Bon-bon region' of one of those European countries over there or whatever, late last week.

“So, when I finally regained consciousness and managed to splash a little cold water on all of those facial bruises shaped just like purse buckles, I happened to glance around the corner and there they were, joined by their men-folk now, on bended knee, rumps pointing gallantly at the sky, pleading in the general direction of Erika’s outrageously talented and obviously generous sister Lea for more of the smooth, creamy, dainty delicacies (That pack a chocolate punch! Whoa!) and that were so good even a man would eat them! Sadly for all of us, there were any number of professional plumbers in the kneeling crowd, and to be quite honest, I could very easily go the rest of my life without witnessing that horrid sight again! Whatever happened to Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no to crack’ campaign, anyway? And right there in church, too!! Needless to say, the sight of those pasty white horrors pretty much turned me away from food in general, although those homemade bon-bons exist on some higher plane than that, so it was with no small amount of sadness that I glanced down at my feet (where he was missing one shoe from that unfortunate melee!) and saw the battered remains of the once proud bon-bon bag, ripped asunder as if by the fury of a 1000 hounds of hell, with traces of what appeared to be human saliva still glistening in the gentle Spring sunlight. It was all very disconcerting and confusing!” he stammered pathetically. (Let the record show that this poor sap did in fact get his butt whooped by a bunch of matronly, AARP card-carrying church ladies! Oh, how sad is that? Oh, the shame must be unbearable!)

(Editorial Note: As of this writing, 100’s of area residents are going door-to-door, randomly canvassing the Greater Spokane Metropolitan Area, desperately inquiring “Are you Lea, Erika’s sister? Do you know where her Ladyship the Baroness Lea lives?” and/or frantically attempting to capture the scent of fresh, delicious chocolate somehow wafting, by chance, on the gentle breeze. And for the record, allocating differing titles to sisters with all those decades of sibling rivalry is, of course, a wise and prudent move. (Thus one is a princess and one a baroness! Plus, baroness and bon-bon both start with 'B', which somehow makes sense, we guess!) If you are ever dern fool enough to go running off half cocked and inadvertently give two sisters the same title, well, it is safe to assume that you are more than likely hours or even minutes away from a hair pulling, no-holds-barred chick fight - so it is just generally prudent to provide at least a modicum of differentiation, however superficial or symbolic that distinction may in fact be. Thank you!)

May 16, 2011

Another influential and potentially cranky area resident has decided ‘enough is enough’ and has thrown his considerable prestige, not to mention his quite impressive hand-to-hand combat skills, in with the growing chorus of people who now feel that Lamont has gone long enough without a device that most other real, normal, fully-functioning towns have had for well over 100 years, the obviously misunderstood yet humble 'flush toilet'. Mr. Toranaga, when he is not out crushing his enemies or throwing invading Mongol hoards back into the sea where they belong, lives at 1102 Garfield St in Lamont where he tends his rock garden, writes haiku poetry in some strange language that doesn’t even use real letters, and has friends over for some highly ritualized tea ceremony that no Westerner could ever really understand. (and that takes about 8 hours to complete, for Pete's sake!)

“Well, this is bushido!” said the outwardly calm yet obviously agitated local warlord whose bloodline stretches back unbroken for over 200 generations – almost as long as the Emperor of Japan's himself. “It is bad enough that the area firefighters thought they could fight fires the way Japanese peasants fought them in the 16th Century – by carting water in buckets to the fire – and although the buckets these people chose to use were somewhat bigger, the concept was still the same – only the scale was different. So, just like using a fire hydrant is an idea whose time has come, it is also time for Lamont to break out of its shocking lethergy and put in a flush toilet. I mean, come on!” said Toranaga-sama in a calm, cool voice that lets everyone know that heads are about to roll, quite literally, if his sage advice is not heeded promptly. “Heck, in rural Japan in the 15th and 16th centuries, using your Western calendar, of course, even the most primitive of Eta or the lowliest shopkeeper could manage some kind of setup for the so-called ‘call of nature’. So, if these uneducated peasants could manage this feat over 500 years ago, can someone please tell me why Lamont has not been able to accomplish this after 100 years of being a town in the country that put a man on the moon? Sheesh! That is pretty sad" he said thoughtfully while shaking that big helmet-looking thing with those frightening although somewhat impractical horns back and forth or whatever.

(Editorial Note: The term ‘Bushido’ refers to the Samurai code of conduct, and should not be confused with a similar local word that somehow refers to one of several of those unfortunate ‘cow byproducts’ that make Lamont so famous. So before you church ninnies go getting all up in arms shouting from the rooftops “The Lamont Blog cussed, the Lamont Blog cussed!!”, might we suggest you do a little research, maybe in the soon to be open Lamont Library, and/or read the quite excellent book “Shogun” by James Clavell. I know reading a book will naturally lower your social standing within your relative social network, but opening up yourself to the world can only provide a level of comfort and understanding that is so obviously lacking in a life filled with watching cows graze, badmouthing the Town, shoveling manure (same thing as badmouthing the Town!!) and watching Gunsmoke reruns while eating pork rinds. Thank you!)